Interactive television (ITV) is an evolving medium offering a user more enriched viewing experiences in comparison to previous television broadcasting mediums (i.e., radio frequency and cable television broadcasts). ITV makes use of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) with interactive menus that provide valuable information to users. Examples of such information include descriptions regarding programs, the time in which particular programs are displayed, and different variations such as languages in which a program may be viewed.
It is common for a user to invoke a GUI-based menu while watching a video program. Unfortunately, the menu is often distracting to the user's ability to continue watching the video program, as the user must mentally switch from viewing the video images to focusing on the GUI. In some cases, the GUI replaces the video program on the screen. Depicting the menu in place of the video program completely interrupts the user's ability to continue watching the video program, which typically continues to run in background.
In other cases, the GUI may be overlaid or displayed directly onto the video images. In this situation, however, the overlaid GUI usually obscures the video program, blocking out portions of the video images and thus interrupting the user's ability to view the video program while the GUI is present. In still other cases, the video images may be scaled to fit alongside a displayed GUI. However, this technique typically involves resizing the video images to properly fit an allocated section on the screen along with the GUI. In other words, a predetermined format defines allocated sections on the screen for the user interface and the video images when they are simultaneously displayed. Also, when full scale video images are switched to scaled images, distortion may occur. For example, the user may have chosen to view a movie in letterbox format, but properly presenting the GUI with the scaled video images might require sizing the video images to a format different than letterbox format, which distorts the video images.
In the above described and other techniques, the video images are interrupted, obscured, and/or distorted, affecting the user's viewing experience when the GUI is called up. Although the user may desire to call up the graphical user interface, the user may be hesitant to do so in order to avoid missing part of the video program.